It is an increasingly common requirement of mass spectrometers to be able to rapidly process many samples. The sample may be a known substance and may have a known concentration. Alternatively, the sample may be unknown.
Injectors used in LC systems are known to be prone to sample contamination or cross-talk and a considerable amount of effort is expended during the design of these systems to seek to reduce the cross-talk or sample carry over that occurs in needle and sample transfer lines. Several “blank” or solvent injections are often required to be run in between injections to ensure that such systems are free of carry-over. This results in a reduction in the duty cycle of the system and less samples being analysed than could otherwise be possibly achievable.
It is desired to provide an improved ion source and method of ionising a sample.